CLAMP’s original manga with Dark Horse will be launched simultaneously in the United States, Japan, and Korea. The story will come out in a small digest consisting of about eighty pages each, which will then be collected into trade paperbacks with bonus material. CLAMP and Dark Horse are coining the bilingual term Mangettes to describe this innovative new format for manga distribution. This digest format, or Mangette, signifies CLAMP’s personal wish to reach their large international readership by now speaking to them directly as artists through Dark Horse, and on a basis of equality with their Japanese fans.

CLAMP and Dark Horse chose the term Mangettes to describe this revolutionary format, whose Japanese pronunciation, mangetsu, means “the full moon.” The two kanji in mangetsu also have the individual meanings of “fulfilled” and “monthly,” reflecting what will be a monthly appearance of each CLAMP Mangette.

According to CLAMP, “Mangettes are a completely brand new experience for us, too, and we’re really happy to be working on this. And we’re really looking forward to the day when we can bring you this new story from CLAMP, and the day when we can meet our fans face-to-face to hear what you think about Mangettes!”

“Dark Horse has made original comics for over twenty years; our editors have seen the hard work of individual Japanese creators in every manga we’ve ever brought over. Now we’re going to work just as hard to meet the trust CLAMP has placed in Dark Horse to publish their original work,” explains Mike Richardson, president and founder of Dark Horse. “Thanks to CLAMP, Dark Horse is today a manga publisher in a complete sense. After two decades of experience in adapting licensed editions of manga released previously by Japanese publishers, we will now become the original publisher of CLAMP, creators at the top of the manga world.”

Soon to come, details on CLAMP’s exciting new story.

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Saturday at the Con was the fullest day of the event. Disney panel came at the midday point and was one of the best of the show, especially for new information. The panel begun with The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Weta’s Richard Taylor moderated the panel, which included producer Mark Johnson, costume designer Isis Mussenden, creature supervisor Howard Berger and visual effects supervisor Dean Wright. Director Andrew Adamson addressed the audience via satellite from Prague with Prince Caspian, himself, Ben Barnes. Adamson shared with the audience the first footage ever shown to anyone outside the production. The production is a larger scale than the original, featuring more battles and more variation in the creatures. Adamson also shared previz footage of one of the battle sequence that features griffins carrying the children into battle at a castle. Berger treated the audience with an animatronic creature head and Mussenden showed off an example of the new costumers for the film’s new warriors.

Disney then present the most news filled panel of the entire event. Director Andrew Stanton shared the plot for the first time. The set up is that in the future Earth is consumed with trash, forcing all humans to eventually leave the planet. One Wall*E robot is left behind and continues to do his work until one day he decides to explore instead. Eventually, he ends up in space finding one of the space cruisers with the descendants of the surviving humans, who have evolved into huge immovable masses, because robots now do everything for them. As for the robots they don’t speak any real language outside of sound effects. Sound designer Ben Burtt came on stage and shared with the audience a live demo of the new sounds being developed for the various characters. In addition to Wall*E, there is the elite probe droid (and love interested), Eve, whose sleek white design is best described as an iRobot. M*O is another square robot, which stands for molecule obliterator, who cleans the new spaceliner where the humans live. Auto is an autopilot, who looks like a robotic ship’s wheel that gives out electronic sounds based on ships. Other treats for the fans were a montage of concept art and an extended scene from the movie. Wall*E comes off as a combination of the personalities of R2-D2 and E.T. with the look of Number 5 from Short Circuit. The realistic look of the film with its unusual lead character make this a truly original venture for Pixar, who continue to push the boundaries of animation.

From Rick’s view

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Warner Bros. returned later in the day; this time bringing out reps from their home video unit to talk about the DVD releases of 300 and Blade Runner: The Final Cut. For 300, the panel included director Zack Snyder, creator Frank Miller, actor David Wenham, producers Mark Canton, Gianni Nunari and Deborah Snyder. Star Gerard Butler thanked the fans for their support in making the film a phenomenon. The movie will be released next Tuesday on DVD, Blu-Ray and HDDVD. On the Blu-Ray disc, the film will feature a picture in picture presentation showing the movie along with the bluescreen footage. Snyder was again asked about Watchmen, which Miller referred to as the Moby Dick for comics, and he assured the crowd that they were making a faithful adaptation.

Blade Runner star Sean Young fields questions from the fans.

Next up was a panel on the sci-fi classic Blade Runner. On hand were director Ridley Scott, actors Sean Young, Joanna Cassidy, Joe Turkel, James Hong, futurist Syd Mead, model maker Mark Stetson, production designer Lawrence G. Paull and DVD producer Charles de Lauzirika. The DVD will be release in three versions a two-disc version with the Final Cut and three hour doc on the film, a four-disc version with three versions of the film and the doc and a five-disc version presented in a special briefcase, including the three version as well as the work print. The entire panel expressed their gratitude for being lucky to have been involved in a classic. All the actors praised Scott as a genius. As for the changes, this isn’t a George Lucas update, the only major digital effect was replacing Cassidy’s face on-top of an obvious stunt double, which performed the stunt were the replicant crashes through the glass. Scott said he sat down with the film after not having seen it for years with a notepad, expecting to have a list of changes, but when the film was done he had nothing to change. The DVD comes out later in the year and the new Final Cut will have a limited theatrical run too.

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Great make-up

Veteran digital media and children’s TV exec Lisa Judson - the new President of Warners Bros. Animation

Batman

The Big S

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Day 2 continued at a fast clip. The floor was just, if not more packed than yesterday and it was hard getting through aisles. I did manage to run into Elvis in his current incarnation as a Storm Troope and he was nice enough to pose. Great guy that Elvis.

I accidedentally stumbled upon Frank Beddor, Cybil Award nominated author of The Looking Glass Wars. How lucky was that? I spent some time chatting about the

Frank Beddor

I just had to swing by Nickolodeon where I got to photograph the prettiest people there and obvious fellow lovers of caffeinated drinks.  We spoke a bit about AWN’s Career Connections, our fabulous job board.  I just love it when I can talk about all the great things AWN is doing and how much we love serving our animation community.  It’s even better when I get to do that talking to nice people like the ones at Nick.

Nicktoons

Nick is Nice

I visited the Disney booth to take my walk through the 40-foot replica of The Black Pearl and got sand in my shoes.  The ship looks amazing and the little walk through it is cool.  The walls are covered in art and there are costumes and other things behind glass.  Photos of the inside weren’t allowed.

A trip down an aisle brought me to the Pokeman tables where game playing was going on with fierce concentration and intensity.

Playing Pokeman

A dangerous looking nurse administers a shot.

No wonder I hate shots

At the Heroes booth, cheerleaders were handing out goodies.  The warehouse-looking booth has the Heroes artwork on the walls and I hear they are changing it daily.

Save the Cheerleaders

Heroes artwork

Signing off,

Gina

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Day 2 in a now completely sold out San Diego Comic-con found me back at the Dark Horse Comics booth for an early chat with Jeremy Atkins about a big announcement at their panel later that afternoon. While I was waiting for the super busy Atkins I had the great honor of meeting Sergio Aragones, the prolific award-winning Spanish cartoonist and creator of Groo.

Aragones at Dark Horse

Sergio is a very gracious gentleman and was happy to chat in his native Spanish. Turned out we had a lot to talk about. Most people from my blog know that I am a traditional Aztec Indian dancer or a danzante. Somehow that came up in our conversation about famous Mexican calendar artist Jesus Helguera and Sergio was quick to tell me about his time in the Mexico of the 1950’s performing along with a troupe of folklorico-type and Aztec dancers in a water ballet extravaganza. He reminisced about how he played the part of the tragic Aztec warrior of legend, Popotepetl and he showed me his regal stance as he mimed holding the dying Iztacihuatl in his arms. Then he laughed and told me how he had to run backstage for a costume change as in the next part of the show he played a clown. That’s Mexico for you - one minute you’re a brave Aztec warrior and the next you’re wearing a squeaky red nose. We chatted more about Mexico and did some dance steps together of various dances like El Guajito and La Botella much to the entertainment of the attendees in the booth. What a great way to spend a half hour!

Brian Talbot and Alice in Sunderland

After Sergio and I chatted and danced, I ran into Mark Evanier (no time for a photo) and Will Vinton. I saw Brian Talbot who was signing his fabulous Alice in Sunderland. While I waited in line as he sketched for a fan, I overheard him talking about Margaret Thatcher and how much she is universally hated. Standing in line can be very educational. Also spotted at Dark Horse – Josh Whedon and Eric Powell. The booth was incredibly busy with customers packing the store area as well as standing in line for signatures and sketches.

Will Vinton

Busy day at Dark Horse

Later, I attended the quick half-hour Dark Horse panel for the exciting announcement that they are re-launching the series Dark Horse Presents in conjunction with Myspace.com. Dark Horse Presents was a great black and white anthology series in the 80’s. The relaunch of the digital version of the anthology debuts today at http://myspace.com/darkhorsepresents. The series begins in earnest with a new monthly comic every month starting in September. The page on Myspace looks amazing and features a story called Sugar Shock by famed Buffy creator Josh Whedon. Sugar Shock is a story from an upcoming Dark Horse series called Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way, front man for My Chemical Romance. Dark Horse expects to publish new talent they find on Myspace on the online series. I hear they are already searching for talent on the popular social networking site.

The new creators will maintain ownership of their work, with Dark Horse having the exclusive right to run it on MySpace as well as the rights for a limited print run. Future Dark Horse Presents contributors will include Hellboy’s Mike Mignola, Guy Davis, Peter Bagge and Gilbert Hernandez, and more are expected to turn up in the coming months.

Dancing off,

Gina

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He told the story of how the film got made starting with his love for James Bond films as a kid. He went to film school and afterward worked as a storyboard artist who wrote 35 screenplays before selling this film. After getting into $75,000 worth of debt, making independent romantic comedies, he decided to take a teaching job in North Carolina and give up on the industry. This is when Angry Films took his script to New Line and a deal was signed. After he made a 17 minute animatic of the film, the studio was then convinced he could direct as well.

Davis said the casting of Clive Owen was a dream and credited the actor as a co-collaborator and a constant source of support, especially in keeping the studio off his back. The stylish flick has a sly humor taking its action sequences to absurd levels, making the production both iconic cool and funny at the same time. Just to give you a taste, Owen’s character Mr. Smith has to deliver a baby during a shootout and uses his pistol to severe the umbilical cord. From the reaction of the crowd, they were having a bloody good time.

That’s From Rick’s view.

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Friday got started quickly with a two hour Warner Bros. panel. Director Peter Segal started off showing the premiere trailer for the feature adaptation of Get Smart. Also on hand for the star studded panel were the new Maxwell Smart, Steve Carell, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Ken Davitian (Borat), Nate Torrence and Maki Oka (Heroes). Carell was asked whether it felt more like working on a comedy or an action film. His reply was that it made him look athletic, coordinated, smart and sexy, which in reality he is none of the above. He went on to say that the film keeps true to the tone and feel of the TV series only deals with modern political issues.

Next Nicole Kidman presented a taped address from the set of Australia to encourage fans to see The Invasion, which she ensures is a new twist on the Body Snatcher tale. After the debut of the preview for the remake of Takasji Miike’s horror film, One Missed Call, stars Ed Burns and Shannyn Sossamon (A Knight’s Tale) came out to field questions from the crowd. When asked if they paid homage to the Japanese original, Sossamon said director Eric Valette asked the actors to not watch the film so they would come in fresh to the production.

Warner Bros. next presented the first look at Roland Emmerich’s prehistoric epic, 10,000 B.C. This was followed with the premiere of the trailer for Whiteout, based on Greg Rucka’s graphic novel. It was the first time Rucka saw the footage as he joined the panel with producers Joel Silver and David Gambino and finally a late arriving Kate Beckinsale, who was stuck in traffic. She was asked about acting against greenscreen and said she hasn’t done it as much as one may think, but she added that it is hard to scream at a stick that is in the place of a CG creature. Silver fielded a question about Speed Racer assuring the fans that Emile Hirsch is Speed Racer and Christina Ricci is Trixie and the Wachowski Brothers take on it is original. He also said the Wachowski Brothers have a great respect for the property because it is the series that introduced them to anime. Rucka discussed the accuracy of the adaptation and said that the filmmakers focused on the good part, eliminated the weaker parts, combined some characters and expanded on the concept in a way that could have been done in the graphic novel. He said that the screenwriters came up with scenes that he originally wanted to do, but couldn’t even though he hadn’t told them of those ideas.

Following the debut of the trailer for the dark fairy tale infused horror film, Trick ‘r Treat, Zack Snyder came to the stage to discuss the highly anticipated Watchmen. Snyder assured the crowd that his adaptation will be faithful to the graphic novel as much as possible with the setting in 1985 and it being made as an R-rated film. He then announced the cast thus far, which was to be officially announced at Comic-Con, but was leaked on the Net last week. Billy Crudup will play Dr. Manhattan. Snyder did say Dr. Manhattan in his superhuman form would be a CG character. Patrick Wilson will play The Night Owl. Jeffrey Dean Morgan (TV’s Supernatural) is The Comedian. Stephen McHattie (300) is Hollis. Coming to the stage were Malin Akerman (Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle), who will play Laurie, and Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children), who will play Rorschach. The release date is March 6, 2009. Snyder stressed more than once that the film isn’t being made to be more easily marketed. As for Alan Moore’s approval of the project, Snyder hopes that he makes a film that Moore might one day watch on DVD and think that he didn’t “fuck it up too badly.”

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LucasArts and TT Games Don Their Fedoras for the Next Great LEGO Gaming Experience

SAN DIEGO, Calif. - July 27, 2007 - LucasArts and TT Games today announced that LEGO Indiana Jones: The Videogame [working title] will whip onto game consoles everywhere in summer 2008. Developed by the same team at Traveller’s Tales that created the LEGO Star Wars(tm) series, LEGO Indiana Jones presents a tongue-in-cheek take on the first three cinematic adventures of pop culture’s most iconic archaeologist, including Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

“LucasArts and TT Games are setting the bar for next-generation family entertainment with the LEGO Star Wars franchise, and our incredible relationship continues with LEGO Indiana Jones,” said Jim Ward, president of LucasArts. “In addition to providing the quality bonding time inspired by any good family game, LEGO Indiana Jones delivers something a little different for everyone. Parents will enjoy the humorous take on some of their favorite movies, and their kids get some rousing action/adventure gameplay that may also introduce them to Indy’s original adventures for the first time.”

“It has been a real joy to work with LucasArts on the LEGO Star Wars games. Indiana Jones is the perfect character for the next LEGO-based videogame adventure,” said Tom Stone, director at TT Games. “Indy also presents us with wonderful and memorable cinematic moments. The boulder scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark in LEGO is hilarious!”

Lucasfilm Ltd. recently announced that the LEGO Group will begin releasing LEGO Indiana Jones playsets in January 2008. Meanwhile, LucasArts remains hard at work on its revolutionary, internally developed Indiana Jones videogame, which takes place a year after The Last Crusade in an original story overseen by George Lucas.

For more information on LEGO Indiana Jones, please visit www.legoindianajonesgame.com .

About LucasArts

LucasArts, a Lucasfilm Ltd. company, is a leading developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software worldwide for video game console systems, computers and the Internet. Based in San Francisco, Calif., as well as on the Internet at www.lucasarts.com , LucasArts was created in 1982 by George Lucas to provide an interactive element to his vision of a state-of-the-art, multifaceted entertainment company.

About TT Games

TT Games aims to become a leading developer and publisher of interactive entertainment for young gamers and their families. Based in the UK, the Group incorporates the TT Games Publishing organisation with world-renowned developer Traveller’s Tales, and subsidiary studio TT Fusion. The first title to come from the TT Games partnership was the award winning LEGO Star Wars: The Videogame, which won over audiences both young and old alike, achieving critical acclaim rarely matched for a title aimed at children. For more information, visit www.ttgames.com.

About The LEGO Group

The LEGO Group, a privately held, family-owned company based in Billund, Denmark, is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of high-quality, creatively educational play materials for children. The company is committed to the development of children’s creative and imaginative abilities, and its employees are guided by the motto adopted in the 1930s by founder Ole Kirk Christiansen: “Only the best is good enough.” For more information, visit www.LEGO.com

LucasArts and the LucasArts logo are trademarks of Lucasfilm Ltd. © 2005-2007 Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. or Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM as indicated. All rights reserved.

LEGO and the LEGO logo are trademarks of The LEGO Group. © 2007 The LEGO Group.

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JENNA JAMESON TO STAR IN NEW
VIRGIN COMICS SERIES

The Web’s Most Downloaded Woman Creates “Shadow Hunter” Comic for Virgin’s Celebrity “Voices” Line

SAN DIEGO COMIC CON—July 25th, 2007— World-famous entrepreneur, adult entertainment icon and New York Times best-selling author Jenna Jameson is creating and staring in her own series of comic books, it was announced today by Virgin Comics CEO, Sharad Devarajan, at Comic-Con, the industry’s annual super-festival in San Diego. The series, titled Shadow Hunter, debuts in comic shops and online comic retailers in December. The complete 144 page Shadow Hunter book will be available in June 2008 at all major book sellers. A new site, JennaComix.com will host additional information, previews and pre-orders of the comic art and books.

Shadow Hunter is the story of a provocative superheroine who survives a brush with death only to find herself fighting the legions of hell for her very soul. Cover art for the first issue has been created by Greg Horn, a top illustrator of comic books and video games. The story, while provocative and sexy, contains no nudity and is intended for a mainstream audience.

“Jenna Jameson is a cultural force,” said Virgin Comics CEO Sharad Devarajan. “She is an entrepreneur who is taking the taboo to the mainstream and has built an industry around her brand.”

“I’m thrilled to be collaborating with Virgin to bring this story to life, first as comics and eventually in film and other formats,” said Jenna Jameson. “Working with comics is creatively liberating – everything is possible. My character is sultry, sexy and kicks ass!’

“Jenna brings a defiance and edge to everything she does, said Gotham Chopra, Chief Creative Officer of Virgin Comics. “She’s a provocateur and there’s no doubt that our creative team at Virgin is going to have a blast collaborating with her. I can assure you every artist we have in our studio is vying to get assigned to this project!”

San Diego Comic-Con is preparing for record crowds when Jenna makes her very first appearance at this event that attracts more than 100,000 fans. Jenna will be speaking about Shadow Hunter and signing autographs for fans on Saturday afternoon, July 28 at 4:30 PM. Images from the series will be available from the Virgin Comics booth at the San Diego Convention Center.

About Virgin Comics
Virgin Comics LLC is a character entertainment company creating original stories and epic myths for worldwide audiences. The company was founded in November 2005 by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Enterprises Ltd., alongside entrepreneurs, Sharad Devarajan, Gotham Chopra and Suresh Seetharaman. Among Virgin Comic’s titles are the breakthrough new comics and graphic novels: Devi, Ramayan 3392 AD, Seven Brothers, and Voodoo Child. www.VirginComics.com

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